Education

The Missouri Department of Higher Education is opening up a community college scholarship program to young adults who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

That means students who qualify for the program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, will be able to trade tutoring hours for two years of tuition reimbursement through the A+ Scholarship Program.

The deferred action program is tied to an Obama administration initiative that started in 2012.

The University of Missouri is expanding an early alert system that tracks academic performance to all four of its campuses this fall.

The system, developed by the company Starfish Retention Solutions, is designed to improve retention and graduation rates by better connecting students, faculty and staff.

The expansion follows the success of a pilot program at the university's Columbia campus that gives advisors real-time grading information on students and tracks performance trends among classes and subjects.

The University of Missouri is making cuts across the board to make up for money it expected it to receive from the state government, but will not. In an email to university staff Thursday, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said MU must make up for an additional $3.8 million that is not coming to the University due to Governor Jay Nixon's recent general revenue withholdings.

Westminster College in Fulton can now offer its alumni and faculty advanced degree programs. The college announced a new partnership with Arizona-based online graduate school Northcentral University this week. The partnership is expected to provide a "preferred tuition rate" for Westminster students, faculty, and staff for the programs Northcentral offers.

The Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla is among a dozen campuses added to the growing list of schools being investigated by the federal government for their handling of sex abuse complaints.

It’s been 20 years since the fall of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. For the last year now, students and faculty here at the University of Missouri have been assisting the University of Western Cape in preserving an archive of thousands of photographs, films, artifacts, oral histories and other historical documents related to the struggle for freedom during apartheid.

The Providence Point hilltop mansion in central Columbia will no longer be reserved as the University of Missouri System President's residence. The system will soon be renting the property out to university businesses and organizations.

As promised, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed on Tuesday the wide-ranging school transfer bill passed by lawmakers this year, saying it violates basic principles of public education and does nothing to help students trapped in unaccredited schools.

At the offices of Education Plus in west St. Louis County, the governor listed three main reasons for his action.

Anxiety crept through SheRon Chaney when she heard that the Francis Howell School District would no longer accept about 350 transfer students from Normandy who were signed up to continue in the program.

“Last year we were hopeful, this year we’re fearful,” she said.

Chaney transferred her middle school aged daughter BrenNae to Maplewood Richmond Heights last year. And even though Francis Howell’s decision -- made during a closed session of its school board -- doesn’t affect her directly, it has Chaney and hundreds of other parents holding their breath.

Educators across Missouri have been debating the issues of common core state standards and teacher tenure. Missouri National Education Association President, Charles E. Smith, said whatever route Missouri goes, teachers should be involved in the decision.

The bill that could replace national common core standards with a new set of standards developed by Missouri state educators is still sitting on Governor Nixon's desk.

In an effort to continue its standardization of inspection patterns, the University of Missouri has added residence halls to its regular facility inspection process. The fatal walkway collapse that caused the death of a Columbia, Missouri firefighter at University Village Apartments in February called attention to the safety of MU campus facilities.

More than 130 students whose families moved into the Normandy school district last summer to be able take advantage of the school transfer program will be shut out of the program this coming school year under a policy adopted by the state board of education Monday.

School lunches have never been known for culinary excellence. But to be fair, the National School Lunch Program — which provides free or reduced lunches to about 31 million kids every day — has never aimed to dazzle as much as to fill little bellies.